


He Couldn’t Live Without Him

by M_spn_e26



Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Background Character Death, Gen, Grief, Guilt, Heavy Drinking, Kidnapping, Murder, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Self-Sacrifice, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_spn_e26/pseuds/M_spn_e26
Summary: They couldn’t figure out why the man started a fight in the middle of the city with a bunch of robots but wouldn’t want anyone hurt.When Peters taken Tony finds out why.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1973842
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	He Couldn’t Live Without Him

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober: Prompt 8  
> Where did everybody go? | “Don’t say goodbye”, isolation

Peter and Tony have been trying to stop this guy for the past 20 minutes. But his little robots just seem to multiply, when they think they’ve taken down most of them more pop up and it seems like there are two times as many. 

The man controlling them is wearing a suit, it’s about twenty times worse than the iron man suits but it’s just good enough to make the man able to evade them. Which is really all he’s trying to do.

He has caused chaos but not a single person has been hurt, the buildings are still pretty intact aside from some cracks or little holes, and the robots are only equipped with low grade laser guns. When they shoot, which is only ever at the pavement and concrete, it leaves a burn mark but nothing else. It’s all also concentrated to one block.

But the people of the city are still scared and Ross wants Tony to deal with them, Peter is just here because War Machine and Vision couldn’t be. They’re out of the country at the moment for reasons Peter can’t really remember.

Peter can hear Tony sigh over the com. Peter feels like sighing too, he’s kinda hungry. He missed lunch and he’s tired too, so he may have accidentally gotten a little sloppy. And they aren’t really sure what this whole distraction is for.

Then Tony shouts over the com and Peter can hear a crash. 

“Mr. Stark! What’s going on?” Peter looks down the street and sees the Iron Man suit lying in the street completely dark, “I’m on my way over to you.” Peter uses a taser web on another robot and flings himself through the air towards his mentor.

When he gets closer he can see a shard of metal piercing through the arc reactor of the suit and his eyes widen. He drops down and runs over to Mr. Stark before looking at the suit. Peter pulls the helmet off and sees his eyes are closed and there’s a cut on his forehead surrounded by a bruise. Looking down into the chest plate he sees that the shard hasn’t impaled Tony, just taken down the suit. 

Peter is about to try and pull it out when his neck tingles and he jerks forward with a grunt. He feels a burning on the back of his shoulder and quickly turns around to shoot the robot that shot him, thanking whatever higher power that’s out there that the lasers are really poorly made.

The robots all stop and surround the two of them. Tony shifts when a laser pointer hits his eye, opening them and moving his head to the side before leaning forward as quickly as he can in the heavy armor with Peters help.

Tony looks around quickly before his gaze lands on Peter. “Kid what-“

Then the man drops down in front of them in his bulky suit. “I have you surrounded, I won.” He says while removing his helmet. “Now spider boy, you can come willingly or I can have my bots kill Mr. Stark here.”

Peter looks around to the robots floating around them, lasers pointed at them. They may not be lethal after just one shot but they will be if all of them fire at him at once, Peter can’t risk Mr. Starks life by not cooperating. Peter rises to his feet with his hands in the air.

“No! Kid, don’t you dare!” Tony shouts struggling to get the suit off to try and stop Peter, but failing.

As Peter looks away from Tony and to the man he gets this feeling in his stomach, it feels final. He’s not sure how he knows, but he knows. He’s not going to survive this one. The intense tingling of his senses doesn’t help those feelings.

Peter looks back down at his mentor, tears filling his eyes. “I’m sorry.” Peter swallows hard before continuing, he knows he has to get through this. He doesn’t want Tony to blame himself for this when it’s not his fault, and Peter knows he will blame himself. “I love you, and this isn’t your fault. Goodbye Tony.”

Tony’s eyes widen and he looks up at Peter horrified, “Don’t you dare say that! Don’t say goodbye to me! I’ll find you, I’ll find him and get you back!” Tony yanks at the heavy armor harder.

Then Peter feels his body go rigid, he’s still looking at Mr. Stark as he falls to the ground. He can’t move, it won’t stop and he sees black spots taking over his vision. 

Peter thinks it’s almost a blessing when he finally passes out.

—-

Tony feels like his hearts breaking when the man grabs Peter off the sidewalk, throwing him over his shoulder and shooting into the air. The other little robots flying after him.

Tony lies there for another five minutes getting angrier by the second until another Iron Man suit comes and rips off the remains of the suit before enveloping him inside. 

Tony takes off into the air looking around frantically for any sign of them. But he can’t see anyone in the air.

Tony searches for the next hour before Rhodey finally shows up in his suit and makes him go back to the tower.

—-

Tony has never stopped looking for Peter in the 4 months that he has been missing. 

He has been missing 4 month 5 days and 18 hours.

It’s been 4 months 5 days and 18 hours of hell.

When Tony had gotten back to the tower after the fight he had made the call to May to tell her what had happened. She had screamed at him over the phone for awhile before calming down and apologizing. After that she had come to the tower everyday for the next two months to watch Tony work on finding Peter. Then she had to go back to work and she stopped coming.

At about three months, Tony got the call from the police.

May Parker was found dead in an alley along her route home. 

Tony remembers May mentioning the car wasn’t working so she had to walk to and from work,  _why didn’t he get her a car?_

It had been a mugger, the police caught him trying to sell May’s wedding ring in a pawn shop.

Tony got drunk that night, trashed his lab and threw everything off of the lab tables. Except one table.

Peters table.

He couldn’t bring himself to touch it, barely wanted to look at it. Especially after failing him by not protecting his aunt and letting that man just take him. But the next day he cleaned up and got back to work looking for Peter while planning May’s funeral on the side. He was going to wait till he found Peter to have it, he’d had the morgue keep May’s body for him because he knows Peter will want to be there. 

And at four months he gets another call from the police. A body was found on a riverbed that they suspect to be Peters.

Tony had jumped in his suit and flew over to the river, pushing the suit past its limits. He landed heavily by a group of police cars before running over to the nearest police officer and demanding that she take him to whoever it is,  _it can’t be Peter he won’t know what to do if it’s Peter-_

He collapses when they get to the river bed and he sees the familiar mop of brown curls. The face that’s usually pale but still has a little color is now ashen, eyes closed away from the world. His chest is still and Tony feels like he can’t breathe either, like he shouldn’t breathe because Peter isn’t.

He pulls Peter into his arms clutching him to his chest, screaming from the agony he’s feeling in his chest. 

Tony didn’t realize losing someone could physically hurt this much.

Tony has no idea how long he cries at the water side, rocking with Peters cold body clutched tightly to his chest. An officer eventually walks over when he’s gone quiet, just staring numbly down at Peters face. She pries Tony’s hands away from Peter and another officer pulls him away from him. Tony just watches as Peter is put onto a stretcher and loaded into a car to be taken to away.

After Peter is out of sight Tony walks over to his suit and takes off towards the tower. He doesn’t remember much after the first bottle.

He wakes up the next day to a trashed lab and empty glass bottles all over. Everything in the lab is thrown around and broken except- 

Peter lab table, which is still in pristine condition.

After that, Tony spent his days crammed away in his lab drinking himself unconscious everyday. 

He stayed sober the day of May’s and Peter’s funeral though. He made sure they were perfect. At least Peter is with May now though, he won’t have to live knowing his last bit of family is gone.

He finally found the man, but he’s dead now. Tony had snapped after the man said  _he was simply a man of science_. Peter was just an experiment to him, the man just wanted to  _observe his experiment_ in the initial fight. Tony clenches his jaw at that thought.

Pepper gave up trying to get him to stop and come eat after a couple months. 

Why should he eat, Peter wasn’t. Why should he sleep? Peter can’t, because he’s gone, because of Tony.

He never even told Peter he loved him.

When Tony finally does leave the lab stumbling down the hallway to Peter’s still clean and kept room, he lays in his bed and goes to sleep.

Pepper finds him two days later, but at least he’s at peace now.

With Peter.

Pepper lets out a mirthless chuckle thinking,  _Tony was right._ One day when he was in the lab with Peter and her, Tony had joked that he wouldn’t be able to live without Peter. He may not have meant it like this but he was right, he couldn’t live without him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked it, let me know what you thought in the comments!


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